I was surprised by the engagement and questions of a few people and the sharpness in their eyes. I have been very impressed with their engagement with this.
Russell Rook, Director of Youth Ministry for The Salvation ArmyCT: How successful are you finding this conference?
RR: Like everything it is how you measure success. It is successful in that there are thousands of youth workers in the UK, and we are doing a brilliant job of finding media encouragement and new ideas and teachings. The conference is doing a brilliant job of giving these to thousands of youth workers and exposing them to some very experienced and greatly exciting youth work experts. So it is great in that way, but also people need more opportunity in their lives to spend time with God and teaching.
CT: What reaction have you had from the young people today?
RR: Great, being at the conference has given the opportunity to be in a group and suddenly find I have a person sitting next to me that I have not met before, but then they understand what I am going through and they know the hardships of you work in the church and the fact that sometimes you don’t see the results in the people you have hope in. So I think the people that make the success are sometimes the people that come to the conference and make this sort of youth-work community that can help each other out.
CT: What are you finding most challenging in your youth work in the UK at the present time?
RR: I think the challenge of helping older people in the church to understand what they need to do to reach young people. How they can understand that? How they can understand that the ministry of young people will look so different from the ministries that have been formed in the past 200 years.
CT: Where do you see it going and what advice would you give to the youth leaders?
RR: I see it going from strength to strength. The church in the UK is the greatest provider of youth work services, and we have over 100,000 volunteers in youth work in the church, and we have double the amount of professional youth workers of the statutory sector put together. In youth work terms the church is a success story. It is doing the biggest and the most, and I think, the best youth work out of all organisations – faith based or otherwise. The great thing is it is still growing.
We are employing more youth workers, and training more youth workers. We are training so many professional youth workers that they cannot find jobs in churches, and they have to work in schools and other areas. So I think it is very exciting as the best things are not happening in youth work but in the church, so that is really exciting and so more and more of that please.
